1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to the field of marine seismic data acquisition. More specifically, the invention relates to control systems for marine seismic vibrators used as seismic energy sources.
2. Background Art
Seismic sources, including vibrators, are used in geophysical exploration on land and in water covered areas of the earth. Signals generated by these sources travel downwardly into the subsurface and are reflected from reflecting interfaces in the subsurface. The reflected energy is detected by signal detectors, typically hydrophones or geophones, on or near the earth's surface or near the water surface in water-covered exploration areas.
Most of the acoustic sources presently used in marine seismic acquisition operations are of the impulsive type, in which as much energy as possible is generated during as short a time span as possible. Examples of such impulse sources include air guns and water guns. The frequency content of such sources is controllable only to a small degree, and different individual sources are selected and operated together in an array for the generation of different frequency ranges of seismic energy for different seismic surveying needs.
Vibratory acoustic sources, including hydraulically powered sources and sources employing piezoelectric or magnetostrictive material, have been used in marine operations. However, such sources have found only limited use. Although such sources can generate signals over various frequency bands, commonly referred to as “frequency sweeps”, the limited power that such sources known in the art have been able to generate have limited their use in marine operations.
It is well known that as sound waves travel through water and through subsurface geological structures, higher frequency sound waves are attenuated more rapidly than lower frequency sound waves, and consequently, lower frequency sound waves can be transmitted over longer distances through water and geological structures than higher frequency sound waves. There has for a long time been a need in the seismic sector of the oil and gas industry for powerful low frequency vibrator type marine seismic energy sources.
It is also important that the spectral content of the seismic energy generated by a vibrator be well known or characterized in order to be able to properly interpret the reflected seismic energy from the subsurface. Control methods used for operating high-powered land-based vibrators are not necessarily adaptable to use in controlling marine vibrators. There also exists a need for a control method for a marine vibrator to assure well characterized energy spectral content.